Naomi Watts to star in The Wolf Hour

The 49-year-old actress has been cast in the new film from director Alistair Banks Griffin, in which she will also serve as an executive producer.

The movie will see Watts starring as a woman who lives alone in the Bronx, New York, having once been a celebrated counter-culture figure who has almost cut herself off from society.

It's set after the notorious Son of Sam serial killer who struck between 1976 and 1977, with David Berkowitz pleading guilty to six murders.

The horrific series of deaths inspired the 1999 movie 'Summer of Sam', and it's these incidents that leave Watts' character retreating into isolation.

An unseen tormentor begins to exploit her weaknesses in a nail-biting thriller from HanWay Films.

The company's managing director Gabrielle Stewart has revealed that Alfred Hitchcock's trademark brand of horror and thriller film making has influenced the movie, which will showcase the best of Oscar-winning actress Watts' abilities.

She said: "'The Wolf Hour' delivers Hitchcockian tension in a densely layered world with a role that will exploit every fibre of Academy Award nominee Naomi Watt's emotional range as an actor.

"Director Alistair Banks Griffin has a clear vision of the world he is enveloping Watts in: all of our senses are going to be stimulated."

In 2017 alone, the actress has appeared in 'The Book of Henry' and 'The Glass Castle', as well as a starring role in Netflix series 'Gypsy'

Meanwhile, she was nominated at the Academy Awards earlier this year for her performances in 'The Impossible' and '21 Grams'.